Diaco sets tone at first UConn football practice

Updated 7:49 pm, Monday, March 10, 2014

Bob Diaco, former Notre Dame defensive coordinator, speaks as Connecticut's new head football coach during an introductory news conference on campus in Storrs, Conn., Thursday, Dec. 12, 2013.

Bob Diaco, former Notre Dame defensive coordinator, speaks as Connecticut's new head football coach during an introductory news conference on campus in Storrs, Conn., Thursday, Dec. 12, 2013.

Photo: Elise Amendola, AP

Diaco sets tone at first UConn football practice

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STORRS -- After nearly three months of assembling his coaching staff, canvassing the state to promote the program to the masses and working almost non-stop in getting to better know his players (and vice versa), UConn football coach Bob Diaco finally got his chance to get on the field and start the process of rebuilding the Huskies with the first of 15 spring practices Monday at the Burton Family Football Complex.

"My first practice as a head football coach, I was very, very excited," Diaco aid. "Very anxious. Chomping at the bit but trying to temper that, so you didn't get overcome. As the ultimate leader of our team, one of the key elements is that you've got to maintain a cool head. Today I was excited and anxious and, hopefully, I did a good job of indicating our team's expectations. But it was a lot of fun."

The Huskies will end its spring workouts on April 12 with the Blue-White spring game at 3 p.m. at Rentschler Field in East Hartford.

UConn took to the field with music pounding from portable speakers set up near midfield. The media was able to watch the first 20 minutes of practice -- which wasn't much except for calisthenics and position drills -- but Diaco was working his way from group to group, starting with the linebackers, bringing serious energy along with him.

"I think they enjoyed the practice structure," Diaco said. "I think they enjoyed the movement, but I think it was probably shocking to them to being addressed with that level of movement and activity and passion and energy."

After three straight losing seasons, including last year's 3-9 campaign which first cost head coach Paul Pasqualoni and, later, interim coach T.J. Weist, their jobs, Diaco was hired by athletic director Warde Manuel to resurrect a program that has become lost in the shadows of both the men's and women's basketball programs and the low-profile American Athletic Conference.

"We've got enough players to have a good team, but we're not a good team," Diaco said. "We're not a good team."

When asked why, he pulled no punches.

"Because they persist in continuing to do things that cause losing," he said. "It's still a team that needs to come a long way in caring for each other. It's a group that needs to come a long way in understanding effort, energy, energy expenditure and strain necessary to win their individual matchups. It's a group that is an average to below average communication group. Positive communication, encouraging communication, demonstrative communication in whether its encouraging words or bringing guys along or just communicating in a drill.

And Diaco wasn't finished.

"It's an easily frustrated group. When a drill comes off track or they're surprised with something else outside the scope of what they thought (would happen). It's a group that has trouble persevering through adversity and rolling with, `Hey, whatever we've got to do, let's do it, here we go.' Whatever comes at us, let's roll. It's a group that's starting to learn finishing but has trouble finishing, finishing drills, finishing plays, finishing workouts, so there are a lot of things that are present that cause losing. It's not just about a collection of players."

So, for the next 14 practices, through the spring game and throughout the summer and fall camp, Diaco's main focus will be trying to erase that mentality. And the task has already started as Diaco has placed hundreds of motivational signs around the football complex, each designed to instill a more positive attitude.

"We have our culture set. It's posted all around the building," Diaco said. "So we can hit them with quick-hitting thoughts and implant that language into their hearts and minds. Then, we have to create activities that reinforce that ideology. And then we have to demand that they do it. Demand it in terms of coaching them through those activities, pointing out theme they're not doing it and heaping praise on them when they are."